Assassin

by Kacey Ezell

  “Dama must be hiding in the asteroid belt,” Deluge said as he set Iora’s course to intercept the trail from the hyperspace emergence point.

  “That’s not an asteroid belt,” Rurranach said. “It’s the lost fleet.”

  “What?”

  “Remember your Union history, Del,” the Sidar said, giving him a small grin. “During the great galactic war, one faction in the First Republic built a fleet to defend Capitol against the other faction. It was the largest fleet ever assembled, on both sides. They battled for months, slugging away until almost every ship was destroyed. The debris left over coalesced over the intervening years into this belt.”

  “Susa never told me that story.”

  “Likely, she didn’t know it. It’s nothing but an obscure anecdote now. But some of us remember. For all intents and purposes, though, you’re right. It’s an asteroid belt. Just don’t plan to land on any of the ‘rocks.’”

  “Got it.”

  However, it looked like that was exactly what they were going to have to do. The green line pointed unerringly toward one of the larger chunks in the center of the deadly field. Deluge took a deep breath, toggled off the autopilot, and brought the command helmet down over his head, engaging his pinplants. Iora would be faster and more maneuverable if he flew her himself.

  And maybe they’d survive.

  “This is crazy,” Rurranach said, letting out a chittering laugh. Deluge dropped his jaw in a grin, but didn’t otherwise answer. Right now, he needed to fly.

  Iora entered the belt at a roughly 45-degree angle of intercept. It wasn’t exact, of course, but it did the job of providing Deluge with maneuvering options as soon as he needed them.

  Which was right away. A chunk of twisted metal came hurtling at them right at eye level. With a thought, Deluge engaged the energy shielding to burn away the smallest pieces of debris and slammed the ship into a hard bank to the right. He watched as the chunk glanced through the shield, turning red as it heated up, missing them by a few bodylengths. Small flashes of white or blue indicated that the shield was doing its job against the tinier pieces, but there were plenty of big ones to worry about.

  Deluge relaxed and sank into the feeling of piloting the ship. He let her thrusters become extensions of his own thoughts. He banked, pulled, and wove his way through the deadly obstacles, maneuvering in three dimensions at once. It was like stalking through tall grass or the leaves of jungle canopy: ducking here and there, twisting around the obstacles, but always coming back to that shining green line, the trail that led to his quarry.

  “Del!” Rurranach breathed. “Look! It’s…it’s a whole hulk! It’s not in pieces!”

  Deluge blinked, and his awareness snapped back to the view screen directly in front of them. Sure enough, the massive behemoth they’d been chasing turned underneath them, revealing its apparently intact structure. He snapped out a quick thought, and Iora ran a scan, her results spilling over the view screen as she reported no electromagnetic activity within the hulk. It was dead, a derelict ship left over from an era long gone.

  “I don’t understand,” Deluge said softly. “There’s no life support or anything. How could dama be here—?”

  Alarm bells screamed in his head, and audibly through the cabin as well. Rurranach flinched, and started tapping commands on his interface as he tried to slew the ship’s external cameras to identify the new threat. Deluge swatted his hand lightly and did the same thing, faster, with his own mind. He also pinged the ship on baryonic and quintessential channels, looking for identification. Iora’s thrusters fired in obedience to his commands, and the ship herself turned just in time for the two of them to catch the visual of a ship hurtling toward them.

  “Hail it?” Rurranach asked, his voice low and stressed.

  “No,” Deluge said. “Look.”

  He threw the results of his transponder query up onto the view screen.

  “That’s a Hunter ship,” he said. “It carries a Khatash registry, and it returned a signal when I hit it quintessentially. That ship belongs to a clan called Whispering Fear. I think this is another attack.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Rurranach asked, his voice eerily calm.

  “No,” Deluge said, slow blinking. “I’m just going to wing it.”

  With that, he judged the chasing ship had come close enough and he gave Iora the command to fire. The ship jerked as her twin “defensive armament” missiles fired at once, streaking through the black toward the still oncoming ship. He’d keyed them in to the ship’s transponder signal, so that even when she tried evasive maneuvers, the missiles tracked unerringly to her heart. First one, then another tiny star erupted as the miniaturized nuclear payload exploded, rendering the attacking ship down to nothing but atoms in the debris-choked field in front of them.

  “You were carrying ship-killers?” Rurranach asked, his eyes wide, his tone shocked. Deluge looked over at him with a grin.

  “Just little ones,” he said. “They’re excellent for self-defense, as you see.”

  “That’s illegal!”

  “Not at all,” Deluge said. “It’s just not really accepted. But then, neither is killing for hire. We’re a race of Hunters, my friend. Nobody expects us to play fair.”

  Rurranach opened his mouth as if he would say more, but just then, their comm system crackled with an incoming message, and it made both of them freeze in surprise.

  “Blast it all to Entropy, Del! You ruined our whole case!”

  * * * * *

  Convergence

  Arow had a room in the far end of the orbital station, and Blade had to trust that the older Hunter kept it clear of any listening devices. Dirrys would know they were back shortly, if she didn’t already, and time pushed at them all.

  Blade followed Ichys to Arow’s corner, the two of them not quite walking together. They separated as they threaded through the few other beings in the halls, but came back to the same small distance when they were past them. He could feel the edges of her fur against the barest edges of his, and when he wasn’t careful, his eyes tracked her motion rather than their path ahead. Were they to be ambushed now, as they had been on Elgon IV, he would be useless.

  By the time they reached Arow’s door, Blade was as jumpy as a kit first out of the den, sure there were dangers everywhere and unable to focus on a single one. When the door irised open to the mid-sized alcove, Blade tensed, and Arow’s gaze landed on him with tangible weight, shocking him back into himself.

  Arow moved back into the room without saying anything, Ichys following without hesitation. The old deo greeted the younger damita by brushing her cheek with his paw, his eyes landing back on Blade as the other male stepped inside. The door closed, and they all stood there, silent.

  “She told me who you are,” Arow said, displeasure clear in his tone.

  “And about Arilys too, then.” Blade said, keeping his tone neutral.

  Ichys stayed next to the older male, across the room, and Blade knew he was supposed to feel that it was them against him. He stood upright, arms at his side, inviting the attack—a silent ‘get on with it then.’

  “She told me.” Arow revealed a flash of amusement for Blade’s daring, there and gone as fast.

  “Dirrys is an enemy to each of us.”

  “Is it only Dirrys that is your enemy?”

  Blade preferred subtlety, maneuvering until the preferred outcome was the only logical course. Watch. Then find a way. In other circumstances, with other species, especially with individuals who didn’t know they were the target of a contract, he had the luxury of time and far greater skill. In this room, he couldn’t be sure he was the cleverest or the strongest, or even the one who wanted Dirrys’s downfall the most. They each had reasons to be here, and now he had to trust that would be enough.

  “I thought Whispering Fear might be my enemy. I came to the clan to learn who was truly to blame. Unlike Dirrys, I have no interest in wiping out a clan to suit my ego. Unlike Dirrys, I do not hun
t my kind. Unlike Dirrys, I am not a traitor to all we hold inviolate. If there are others in the clan like her, they are my enemy. And they should be yours.”

  Arow settled back on his haunches, still in position to lunge if needed, but more comfortable and less poised to attack than before. He considered Blade’s aggressive demeanor, weighing more than just these moments.

  “Dirrys is a rot in our clan,” the deo said, after letting the moment stretch. “And she spread to some, but not many, of the clan. Disappointing that Arilys was corrupted, but there are not many more. What did you think you would accomplish, latching onto the clan you suspected, not knowing how deep the rot went?”

  “Build proof to clear Night Wind’s name. Proof enough that makes her life forfeit, and those of any of her allies in this. She destroyed my clan. She attempted to destroy her own pregnant heir. She has profits where the clan should show losses, and it’s not from good business. She betrays what we are and what we claim to be every minute she breathes, and once the proof is presented, that wrong will be rectified.”

  “And if you couldn’t?”

  “I would have.”

  “If you couldn’t.” Ichys this time, less a question, more a demand.

  “Kill her.” There was no bravado or false confidence in his voice. Blade meant it as deeply as he’d meant anything.

  “And die in the attempt?” Arow again, tilting his head in curiosity.

  “A possibility, but an unlikely one.”

  “Don’t discount her ability because of her madness. If anything, it makes her deadlier in self-defense.”

  “I don’t underestimate her.” Blade’s expression tightened with disgust, lips drawing back from his teeth. “She is lashing out without thinking. Whatever cunning served her these past years, she’s losing it in her desperation. Attacking Ichys was stupid, and that anger would drop her at my feet.”

  “That anger would take you with it.” Arow flicked his tail dismissively, neither impressed nor mocking.

  “It is the last option,” Blade replied, with a gesture echoing the older male’s. “I’d prefer to ruin her first, clear my clan, have Ichys fix your clan, then we can draw lots to decide who kills Dirrys.”

  He locked eyes with Arow, who met his gaze unblinking. His heartbeat rammed through his senses, and he was sure they could hear it. Would this be the end of his work? He tore his gaze away from Arow to meet Ichys’s eyes. Her dark ones on his, her shining fur a knife in his chest. He wanted her with him. He wanted to be by her. It didn’t matter to him which of them led, so long as Dirrys was destroyed. He would follow her anywhere. When he next spoke, Blade couldn’t keep his tone entirely smooth. His ragged emotion tore at his words, and all his cunning wasn’t enough to hide his pain.

  “I need to know,” he said, “Are we in this together?”

  In the stretch of this third long silence, Ichys took a step, and then another. Slowly, she crossed the room again to stand next to Blade.

  After another handful of breaths, Arow nodded.

  * * *

  “I didn’t have access to the official financials,” Blade said, starting with the obvious as he unlocked his files to display them for Arow and Ichys. “This is what I put together based on merchant accounts, what I heard of off-world contracts, trade agreements I knew about, and results from standard record searches. I couldn’t go to any of my contacts, so it’s still sketchier than I’d like, but even still, the picture doesn’t match with Dirrys’s approach to spending, nor her repeated confidence that Whispering Fear is stronger than ever. I would have thought it just hubris, except that her spending supports it, and overall the health of the clan seems assured.”

  “No outsider could be sure of the full contracts,” Arow said, but not as though he were arguing. Thoughtful, he pulled up his own files. After scanning several, he moved a summary document to display—Blade noticed with deep satisfaction his estimates on spending matched very closely to the official records—and they all stared at it for a stretch of silence.

  “These aren’t the clan records,” Ichys noted, glancing back to Arow.

  “An excellent lesson for a dama.” Arow studied the display, but flicked an ear toward her in amusement. “You control the overall finances, but your smarter clan members will keep their own copies. Our fortune is tied to the clan’s, and you know Hunters like access to information that affects a job, or their possible comfort.”

  She answered with a fond snort, and, despite the tension around them, Blade relaxed slightly. With what he had put together, and these critical partners, he wouldn’t have to haunt Whispering Fear for years. His clan could be cleared in the very near future, and Dirrys removed.

  “The credits in and out don’t match up,” Blade said, leaning toward the display.

  “Determined to share the obvious with us today, aren’t you, jungle kit?” Arow’s clipped tone reminded them all of the strain in this alliance, and Blade knew better than to argue the jungle kit designation. Arow had suspected him, but learning the truth from Ichys rather than Blade himself had been a misstep. Blade should have argued harder to tell Arow himself—it would not have made everything perfect, but the older male had clearly lost much of whatever respect he’d had for ‘Chirruch.’

  “There are older investments, such as our Malluma Songo, that don’t always accumulate in a pattern, and I tend to add those in at once each year. And of course, Dama keeps some contracts for herself, of which we rarely learn the details.”

  “The hit you took on Malluma Songo was so big it came up in the last council.” Blade shook his head, studying the numbers. “Pending profits there couldn’t possibly account for this. A strong dama can bring in plenty of credits on her own, yes, but Dirrys has only left Khatash three times in the last six months. Unless her contracts were more lucrative than the Peacemaker contract, she doesn’t fill in these gaps either. And,” he continued, sure they were close to something, tail lashing behind him, “she would not have been so set on the Peacemaker contract if she had contracts like that in her vest.”

  “Then where is Whispering Fear’s money coming from?” Ichys asked for them all, gesturing for Arow to share all the files with them. He did so, and they each reviewed silently for a time.

  “This,” Blade said suddenly, sitting up in interest. “No transfers came in around the time of Peacemaker Hrusha’s death. The balance doesn’t change. But shortly after, the clan took in money from a large sale of Malluma Songo, tasked back to the field that failed. Are there old stores still being sold off?”

  “Yes,” Ichys said, flipping through her notes. “But small quantities, only enough to keep our connections dealing. How big was the sale?”

  Blade moved his file to the display, and they regarded it. After a moment, Arow returned to his own scan and took over the display with a new file.

  “When is this?” Blade asked, seeing a similar bump with little to justify it.

  “After the Governor died.”

  Everything Dirrys had said, when he’d eavesdropped, when she’d lost control after Ichys’s announcement, when she showed off for the clan…everything solidified for Blade in that moment.

  “She killed the Governor, so that she could take either the Peacemaker or Governor contract. She killed the Governor on a contract.”

  Killing another Hunter was anathema, except in certain proscribed circumstances. Killing another Hunter by accepting a contract on one’s own kind?

  “Who would have asked for such a contract? She could have killed them just for asking.”

  “Should have.” Blade shrugged; without making much effort, he could imagine a hundred scenarios where someone in the galaxy was desperate enough to try and secure a Depik to kill the Depik Governor. He was less worried about that than he was consumed with the pieces falling together in front of him. “But she didn’t. And she didn’t get the Governor contract—Peacemaker Hrusha did. Then she didn’t get the Peacemaker contract—my dama did. So, she killed them both and d
estroyed Dama’s clan to clear the board.”

  “Whoever requested the contract has—or thought they had—the power to influence those contracts.” Arow’s pupils narrowed to slits, his gaze fixed on some middle distance. “Dirrys wouldn’t have taken such a risk on trust.”

  “Is this enough?” Blade asked, though he suspected the answer.

  “No,” Arow said flatly.

  “But now we know where to dig in our claws.” Ichys, for the first time in days, slow blinked a smile. “We have her ship. And her ship’s logs. Of everywhere she’s been over any time period we like.”

  “We don’t have to worry what Dirrys will do now that you’re back,” Arow interrupted, looking up from his wristpad.

  “Has she already done something?” Blade tensed for action, though there was little he could do to prepare if Dirrys had already put something into motion against them.

  “Unlikely—she’ll have something more pressing. A council has just been called. Time to see who’s taking the Governor and Peacemaker contracts, and from Dirrys’s message, she knows one of them.”

  Blade took a moment, looked over their notes once more. The records they’d collected, the trail they’d recreated. Now or never.

  “Want to go to the council?”

  * * *

  Arow had been an off-world killer longer than most Hunters ever lived. Blade had heard stories of Hunters who grew very old, of course, and some were likely even true. To be so old, and still so lethal, imbued Arow with a sense of gravity Blade had rarely experienced, even among damas. For all that to be true of a male meant that Blade kept some part of his focus on Arow even when the older Hunter simply walked them toward his ship.

  The ship itself served as a reminder of the privilege of such a long career as Arow’s. It was not new, but it was exceptional. Blade wanted to see it from the outside, wanted to linger inside rather than just pass through to the dropship. It was that beautiful.